 They were part of the Ngāi Tahu tribe which occupied the South Island of New Zealand, remnants of a more numerous population which may have numbered between 3000 and 4000 people at the beginning of the 19th century.Decimated by civil wars from 1810 to 1815, they were almost exterminated between 1830 and 1832 in attacks by the northern Ngāti Toa, led by Te Rauparaha.The earliest settlers in Canterbury appear to have been the people described as the Moa-hunters, arriving about the 10th century near the time of the traditional discovery of the South Island by Rākaihautū.